Contact: Fr. Jerome, O.S.B., 603.703.2738, [email protected]

MANCHESTER – Members of the Saint Anselm College Irish Club and Celtic Society are hoping for clear skies and balmy weather this coming Sunday, March 25, for the annual Saint Patrick’s Parade in Manchester. The club each year participates in the parade, usually by entering a float.

Club president Thomas Mannion, a senior communication major from Boston, said the float for 2018 will be “a salute to the Irish language,” because this year is being celebrated in Ireland as “the Year of the Irish Language.”  The float will depict three scenes in the history of Irish language development: an Irish monk working in his scriptorium on a manuscript in Irish and Latin; a 19th century hedge school master with youngsters learning their lessons in Irish, the national language; and a 21st century television studio from Telefis na Gaeilge, or TnaG, the Irish broadcasting unit that provides programming entirely in Irish, often called Gaelic in the U.S.

The float will feature club members, including members of the Irish dance group, who will dance before the rolling cameras of TnaG.

“As the grandson of Irish immigrants, it is very exciting that this will be the theme for our Saint Anselm float in the Manchester parade,” said Mannion. “I remember when I was younger, my grandfather would be always speaking in Gaelic around the house and was proud to be Irish. I am proud to be celebrating my heritage and my family’s Gaelic roots.”

Students in the club are very grateful  for “help and advice” from the carpentry shop in the physical plant department, as well as the assistance of East Coast Towing in Hooksett has provided the vehicle that is transformed into a parade float, according to Father Jerome Day, O.S.B., club adviser.

This year is “Bliain na Gaeilge, the year of Irish Gaelic,” said Father Jerome, assistant professor in the Department of English, because it marks the 125th anniversary of the founding of Conradh na Gaeilge, the Gaelic League, that has spearheaded the restoration of the language in Ireland and around the world since 1893. After the English invasions under Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century, he said, Irish was progressively marginalized and even criminalized. When the Great Famine struck in the mid-19th century, he added, it devastated some of the most robust Irish-speaking parts of the country. With independence in 1922, Irish has become a compulsory subject in elementary and secondary schools, while most Irish universities advanced degrees in the language and literature.

Although most Irish citizens in the Republic of Ireland can speak some Irish, and many are fluent in it, the number of people who claim Irish as their first language is small, only about 150,000, he said, out of a population in excess of 4.7 million.

“The Manchester Saint Patrick’s Parade is a fun event every year,” said Mannion, “ and I encourage all St. A’s students to come out and watch our fellow club members march in the celebration.”

Manchester has one of the major Saint Patrick’s parades in New England, but it celebrates late in March because of heavy demand for pipe bands and marching bands from Boston and Holyoke, MA, parade organizers have explained.◄